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First Nations groups hold day of protest against Tory government policies

Aboriginals from Canada and the U.S. held a national day of protest in Ottawa against the policies of the Conservative government.

Idle No More protesters gathered at Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto on Friday, as part of a day of protest against the federal goverment. (STEVE RUSSELL / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

By Joanna Smith Ottawa Bureau

Fri., Dec. 21, 2012

OTTAWA—Chief Theresa Spence was not on Parliament Hill but the few hundred supporters who turned out in the slush and the snow to amplify her demands tried to cheer loudly enough for her to hear them.

“I’ll be honest with you. She is getting weak, but strong in spirit,” Danny Metatawabin, an elder and close supporter of Spence from Attawapiskat, the Cree community she leads in northern Ontario, told those gathered in Ottawa on Friday afternoon.

The protest was organized by a grassroots movement calling itself Idle No More, over what it says was a lack of consultation with Aboriginal Peoples over elements of the recently passed omnibus budget implementation Bill C-45.

The movement gained momentum when Spence, who made headlines last year for her battle with the Conservative government over poor housing conditions in Attawapiskat, launched a hunger strike Dec. 11.

Spence remained on Victoria Island — about a kilometre away across a narrow stretch of the Ottawa River — while her supporters leaders repeated her call for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Governor General David Johnston to meet with aboriginal leaders from across the country.

“We will stand united,” Shawn Atleo, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, told the crowd. “We will need your strength to bring about the change that we so deeply thirst for. Canadians, we are counting on you to stand with us and to do this now.”

In Toronto, supporters of the movement gathered at Yonge-Dundas Square.

There were no speakers. The crowd of a few hundred young adults and parents with children formed a drum circle. Some danced, locking arms and circling the crowd as others sang along.

A spokeswoman for Harper noted the prime minister and Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan met Atleo on Nov. 28 to review progress since a First Nations-government summit in January.

“The Government remains willing to work with Chief Spence, and all chiefs, to deliver better outcomes for First Nations communities. Minister Duncan has repeatedly offered to meet with Chief Spence but has not as yet received a response from her,” Julie Vaux wrote in an emailed statement.

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